Although the principle of operation and the basic structural features of the Osius U.S. Pat. No. 2,109,501 liquefier have prevailed as a matter of design for many years, a particular size of load is generally required each operation for uniform results (with liquefiers) if the cycle of operation is recipe-time-set for particular mixtures having solid particles in them to be comminuted. Also, removable bases on jars, as suggested by Forss U.S. Pat. No. 2,530,455, provide a generally acceptable practice for cleanliness of walls and cutters each use when comminuting mixture ingredients. Also, a timer is expected to assure uniform results. However, with both of these concepts combined with a push button timer or speed selector control in conventional liquefiers, or both, the particular load size and the particular recipe ingredients called for appear to be required each time to assure uniform results.
This appears to have become an expectation or conclusion of many users since discrepancies noted in timed mixes of different volumes appear to occur with variation in load sizes. With larger quantities the solid or fibrous ingredients conventionally are not being processed completely as they pass through the cutters. With smaller volumes, overcomminution can occur. However, acceptable uniformity of results in a timed interval is not dependent upon uniformity of load size or materials, but rather, the thoroughness of the circulation through constant speed cutters as distinguished from around them.
Heretofore, the pedestals in the bottom of conventional liquidizer containers supporting the rotatable cutter are of substantial height to provide appreciable space around and below the cutter blades to accommodate solids in a mixture and for centrifugation and circulation and theoretically upwardly along the container walls. Any solids tending to collect below the cutter blades are intentionally forced to flow in a path radially outwardly and upwardly along the container walls. Unfortunately, this essentially avoids, by flowing around, intimate or repeated contact with the cutters. This is particularly true where flutes in the container walls extend a substantial distance below the cutters as illustrated in Osius U.S. Pat. No. 2,109,501 or Corcoran U.S. Pat. No. 2,788,038. It is in this region that comminution of solids may correspondingly be slowed down with an increase in the amount of solids involved.
Thus, with the present-day push button or timer switch determining the duration of each period of comminution in a liquefying container, the uniformity of the mixture can be said to vary quite measurably and objectionably with variations in the quantity of solids present. The desired or expected homogeneity or comminution may not be attained in the time period prescribed by a recipe when the amount of solids varies under these conditions. There are differentials in conventional circulation contact of solids by the cutters accompanying quantum changes in either solids or liquids for the same period of time.